What's the question mean? (11A)

Before I give 4 good solid critical thinking questions I think it’s important to define what a good question has. The first aspect is relevance. A good question needs to be very relevant to the article or subject at hand. Second is the balance of specificity and broadness. If a question is too broad and too open-ended it’s easy to answer because you can write just about anything on a broad question. Secondly if a question is too specific the answer may be skewed with bias, or limit the persons imagination when it comes to the answer. And finally the wording of the question needs to be specific. You can’t have a question that has the possibility to mean two things or is ambiguous.

So here are some questions.

#1 In the “The joy of boredom” article it talks about how boredom is the gateway to creativity. How does creativity come from being bored? (Hint: what does one do when bored?)

#2 In the “The joy of boredom” article it says creative people have a higher tolerance for boredom. Is this true? Are they more creative than others or are the just differently creative?

#3 Technological advancements are taking up more of our spare time that we would normally be “bored”. One of the articles claims that this is a problem and is lowering our creativity. Is this true? Provide a personal scenario that is relevant to the lack of “boredom” blocking or halting our creativity.

#4 One article listed innovations that the author was looking forward to. Were there any unrealistic expectations? Any there any useless or worthless innovations? Amazing or life-changing?

               Answer to #2:

               I would say that people with a high tolerance for boredom are not more creative, but in fact just have a creative mind. A big imagination if you will. Others however think in different ways. For example we recently read of a woman who was doing poorly in school. And when presented to a psychiatrist she was discovered to be a dancer. Just because she couldn’t think in a chair or invent a new device doesn’t make her less creative than others. It’s just makes her creative in different ways.